This article discusses the phonology of the Inuit languages. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Inuktitut dialects of Canada.
Most Inuit varieties have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities (with phonemic length distinctions for each). Although Inupiatun and Qawiaraq have retroflex consonants, retroflexes have otherwise disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects.
Vowels
Almost all dialects of Inuktitut have three vowel qualities and make a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. In Inuujingajut (the standard alphabet of Nunavut) long vowels are written as a double vowel.
In western Alaska, Qawiaraq and to some degree the Malimiutun variant of Inupiatun retains an additional vowel which was present in proto-Inuit and is still present in Yupik, but which has become or sometimes in all other dialects. Thus, the common Inuktitut word for water – imiq – is emeq in Qawiaraq.
Furthermore, many diphthongs in the Alaskan dialects have merged, suggesting the beginnings of a new more complex vowel scheme with more than three distinct vowels. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the Kobuk area, where the diphthongs and are now both pronounced . Other diphthongs are also affected.
In contrast to the larger number of vowel contrasts in Alaskan dialects, in the dialect of northwest Greenland (particularly Upernavik), the phoneme has been replaced by in many contexts.
Otherwise, the three-vowel scheme described above holds for all of the Inuktitut dialects.
West Greenlandic vowels have a very wide range of allophones: varies between , , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars. varies between , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars. varies between , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
Consonants
The Nunavut dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen distinct consonants, though some have more.
{ | class="wikitable" style=text-align:center
! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |
! rowspan="2" | Labial
! colspan="2" | Alveolar
! rowspan="2" | Retroflex
! rowspan="2" | Palatal
! rowspan="2" | Velar
! rowspan="2" | Uvular
|-
! ! |- ! colspan="2" | Nasal | | | | | | | |- ! rowspan="2" | Plosive ! | | | | | | | |- ! | | | | | | | |- ! rowspan="2" |Continuant ! | | | | | | | |- ! | | | | | |() | |}
Stress
Primary stress is said to fall on the last syllable of each word.
Intonation
In Inuktitut, intonation is important in distinguishing some words – particularly interrogatives – but it is not generally marked in writing. There are some minimal pairs in Inuktitut where only pitch distinguishes between two different words, but they are rare enough that context usually disambiguates them in writing. One common case, however, is suva. A high pitch on the first syllable followed by a falling pitch on the second syllable means "What did you say?" A middle pitch on the first syllable followed by a rising pitch on the second means "What did he do?"
In general, Inuktitut uses intonation to mark questions in much the way English does. When an interrogative pronoun is used, pitch falls at the end of a question. When there is no interrogative pronoun, pitch rises on the last syllable.
Inuktitut speakers tend to lengthen vowels with a rising intonation. So, a rising tone is sometimes indicated indirectly by writing a double vowel:
Phonotactics and sandhi
An Inuktitut syllable cannot contain more than one segment in the onset or coda. Thus consonant clusters like or that might arise from morphemes being joined together are deleted. There are also some restrictions on final consonants, where only voiceless stops () can occur unless consonant sandhi has occurred.
Although two-segment consonant clusters occur when morphemes are joined together, three-segment clusters are consistently simplified. Additional constraints on two-segment clusters divide consonants into three manner of articulation groups: